Freefall
by MadMaxofHazardUs
Summary: A prequel to the events of Bioshock 1, following the journey of 18 year old Timothy Vanderbilt. UPDATE: Chapter 9 is up! Please R and R!
1. Prologue

_Freefall_

_Prologue_

"Hurry up, slags! We gotta get these leaks plugged before lunch!" Jacob Norris yelled. "Harrison, get the fuck off your butt and earn ya pay!"

_Well, he's in a charming mood,_ Timothy Vanderbilt thought with a slight smirk. He paused his welding to sit on a nearby crate, lifting his face mask and wiping the sweat from his brow. That action alone triggered a flood of memories from when he and his family first moved to Rapture four years prior, a stoney-faced avatar of a man named Andrew Ryan appearing on a screen with a voice-over.

His father had worked for the Tennessee Steel Group, a smaller division of the United States Steel Corporation based in New York City. He had started as a simple welder, much like Timothy was now, and eventually worked to a high level position in the company. With such a hard-work ethic and a passion for inventions, his father was surprised when he would be repeatedly turned down promotions to the New York office, as well as having all of his ideas for streamlining the making and welding of steel rejected. That was when Ryan took notice, and invited his father and his family to Rapture. Tim wished he hadn't. He _really_ wished he hadn't.

Tim looked at his watch, waiting for the right time. Norris lumbered by with a thick piece of pipe on his shoulders, nodding. Tim put his index finger and thumb in his mouth, and whistled as loud as possible. Everyone who was working perked their heads up, and practically sprinted to the bar of the Kashmir Restaraunt.

In Rapture, the drinking age did not exist, but it was commonly accepted that no one under eighteen could drink. Thankfully for Tim this wasn't an issue. After pulling some canned fruit from a box, he ordered a bottle of Sinclair's Spirit from the bar and walked over to where Jacob was sitting.

He had picked a wide window with an expansive view of Rapture, his welding goggles perched atop his forehead. For some reason, at least to Timothy, Jacob looked remorseful. Ironic considering the sign nearby that read "_Happy_ New Year 1959," which was currently off.

"What's up, Jake?" Timothy asked as he took a seat across from his mentor. He was the only person who was allowed to use that nickname.

Norris sighed. "You ever help build something, only to not be recognized for it?"

Vanderbilt shook his head. "No, not really."

"I helped build this city, kid. My blood, my sweat, my tears. Not one bit of recognition. It sucks, Timmy."

He finally turned to look at Tim, who was consuming a piece of fruit from the can. "Every year that passes, I hope for a better job, a better house--"

"So keep hoping. The best things come to those who wait, you know?" Tim regretted what he said almost as soon as it left his mouth. It was a lie when you got down to it. Sometimes, the best things come if you're born into it...like he was.

However, Norris didn't seem to see it that way. He took a sip of his beer and said, "I've been telling myself that for who knows how long. After the war, it was hard to keep a steady job. One dead-end job to the next. I worked in a scrapyard, worked in an oil field...then Ryan comes along and here is the opportunity of a lifetime. Living under the sea! Boy, I was a fucking idiot."

Jacob took another swig of his alcohol, lost in thought. Tim had no idea what to say; the man sitting before him might as well have been a second father, for his real father was too wrapped up in his work to pay much attention to his son and daughter. Nevertheless, he loved him dearly for everything he had done. Before he knew it, the fifteen minutes for lunch were up and it was back on the job, with Norris berating Harrison for being a lazy slag with no motivation. After all, it would be a new year, and there would be lots of upper class citizens at the Kashmir later that night, and if one of the pipes broke, and the place flooded, it would be on Jacob's watch.

Since Tim's parents were considered to be part of the upper class, it meant that he would be returning to the Kashmir later. It was interesting to see how drastically different the upper class and the lower class citizens interacted. There was tension, and there were no major hostilities...yet. However, as Timothy cut off a faulty section of pipe, he couldn't help but shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen.


	2. Chapter 1

_Freefall_

_Chapter One_

When his shift ended, Timothy clocked out, wished Jacob a Happy New Year, and made his way to the bathysphere with the other workers, all of whom were headed to Neptune's Bounty or Pauper's Drop. He was the only one headed to Olympus Heights, the apartment complex for Rapture's upper-class citizens.

Halfway there, Tim snorted at the thought of Andrew Ryan. Granted, this wasn't the first time he had done so, but after what Jacob had said earlier today, he had acquired a litte more insight into the man. He touted a capitalistic system without classes, but forgot to take into account the very people who constructed his "utopia." As a result, a man named Atlas was slowly gaining support among the lower classes of Rapture. Personally, Tim believed everyone should have a fair share, and while this seemed to be the way things were, the tension he saw suggested the opposite.

It was then that he noticed something stuck between the wall of the bathysphere and one of the cushioned seats. Cocking an eyebrow, he moved to the otherside and pulled the cushion itself up slightly to see what it was?

_What the hell is this?_ he thought, his curiosity deepening.

Staring back at him was something akin to a syringe, but bigger and fatter. A light blue liquid filled the inside of its chamber, and a black and gold banner was wrapped around the center of the object.

Timothy gingerly reached for the object, and removed it from its residence. He held it in the palms of his hands, noticing that the tip didnt appear sharp. Looking out of the porthole, he saw the bathysphere was close to docking. Not wanting to leave the syringe, he placed it carefully inside his dirty, semi damp coveralls, and waited for the bathysphere to rise into the apartment complex.

*******  
Timothy had practically collapsed face-first onto his bed upon reaching his apartment, barely having time to remove his dirty coveralls before sleep took over.

Slowly, the screeching alarm clock he had set a week earlier brought him back to the land of the living. He blinked hard and rapid, staring at the infernal device: ten o'clock--right on time. He swung his legs off of the bed, waiting inevitably for the familiar voice to follow.

"Timothy, are you up?" Porschia Vanderbilt's voice was muffled through the wooden door.

"Yes, mother, but I need to wash up."

"Okay! Oh, if I didn't tell you, Maria will be at the Kashmir tonight."

Tim grinned broadly, delighted to hear such news. _Maria..._

"No, I didn't know, but thanks for informing me," he replied, but his mother's "you're welcome" was lost in the frenzied removal of his work pants and shirt. He walked to the bathroom and turned on the water in the tub. As he waited for the temperature to rise, Tim noticed the syringe sitting innocently on the sink. He almost thought something paranormal had moved it, and got scared, until he vaguely recalled placing it there before removing his coveralls.

The water had finally heated up to a comfortable level, and Timothy eased his aching body into the tub. He was now feeling a mixture of elation and dread, brought on by thoughts of Maria and the syringe respectively. And then came that terrible feeling in the pit of his stomach, the same one he experienced at lunch earlier, looming with omniscience.

_Stop. Clear your head out, dummy. Relax._ Tim smiled as he rested his forearms on the edge of the tub and did just that.

*******  
Thirty minutes later, Timothy was feeling clean and fresher than before, and had already put on a formal black dress shirt with matching pants and shoes. He was currently looking at himself in the mirror.

_Look at this handsome man,_ he thought jokingly, flashing his best shit-eating grin at his reflection. Tim always felt he was average in terms of his looks, but in some way, Maria managed to make him feel special and attractive. Or at least she had given him the illusion as such (like every other man, he had learned how difficult the opposite sex could be). Either way it was appreciated. She was one of the few things that could make him smile, in addition to Jacob's stories and his younger sister Jenny.

In his peripheral vision, the strange bulky syringe was calling him, imploring him to pick it up. As much as Timothy didn't want to do so, he found his fingers levitating above it.

"Timothy, dear, we're ready to go!" Porschia exclaimed from the hall outside of his room.

"I'm almost ready! Hold up!" he yelled back. He stared at the syringe, still having no idea what it could possibly be used for.

_Screw it. Take it anyway,_ he thought with a shrug. Then he grinned slyly. _Could make for a good luck charm. Maybe Maria and I will consumate our relationship tonight._

He put on his suit jacket that hung on a hook on the back of his bathroom door, put it on until it felt snug on his body, then pocketed the syringe and stuff deep into one of the coat pockets.

But despite this, he still had that bad feeling about tonight and he had a feeling as they got closer to the Kashmir, this feeling would only increase in intensity and make things worse for him mentally.

*******  
"So how was work today, big brother?" Tim's younger sister Jenny exclaimed. She was such an innocent child, still young and able to fully enjoy living under the sea. She was sitting on her mother's lap, looking out of the porthole. She was the only child in the bathysphere--the rest were adults or just coming into adulthood like he was.

"It wasn't too bad," he replied with a smile. He looked at her and she smiled in return. He would do everything to protect her, no matter what the cost may be. "Fixed some leaks in the pipes so the Kashmir won't become a swimming pool."

Jenny giggled at the thought of everyone swimming around inside of the restaurant. "That's funny."

"I know, right? How was school?"

"Boring," she said with frustration, drawing out the word for further emphasis. "We never play anymore, and we have more lessons now! I don't like it."

_That's odd. I haven't heard such a thing from her before,_ Timothy thought. _Maybe it has to do with this uneasy feeling in my stomach. All of the tension between the lower and upper classes...could that possibly extend even to the younger ones?_

"We're here!" Jenny announced. Sure enough, the bathysphere was docking in the Rapture Metro station. The whole ride was very familiar to Tim, who had only hours ago had ridden home the same route.

_Game time, buddy,_ he thought. He patted the syringe in his jacket pocket, strangely feeling okay with its presence as the bathysphere rose into the station. _You will be my good luck charm. Maria, baby...you're mine tonight._

As the porthole opened and everyone filed out, Timothy strutted out, smooth and overflowing with cool, and walked with his parents to the restaurant proper.

"Son," his father, Alan Vanderbilt said. "Can I speak to you for a moment, man to man?"

By this time, his mother and Jenny had already walked in to the Kashmir, so it was just him and his father standing outside, with the faint sounds of music filtering through. "What is it, father?"

Alan put both hands on his son's shoulders, and looked him in the eye. He sighed. "I know it may seem like I haven't been paying much attention to you lately, and I'm sorry. I feel like I've failed you as a father."

Tim frowned. "No, father, that isn't true. While it does bother me that we don't spend much time together, I've never once felt that you were a bad father. Never."

In a rare moment of emotion, Alan smiled slightly. Seeing his father smile, for the first time in many years, almost brought Tim to tears and it took everything in him to hold back. "I love you, dad."

Alan smiled a little more, and embraced his son in a tight hug, unusual for a father to do. "I love you too, son. I promise we will spend more time together. I'll make sure of it."

"Thanks, dad."

"Now, come on, let's go enjoy the night!" He laughed and made his way into the Kashmir to look for Porschia and Jenny. Tim shook his head and smiled. His dad seemed to be in a great mood tonight.

When Tim walked in the main entrance, it was radically different than what he had seen earlier. Colorful, fun streamers lept from the ceiling with groups of equally eye-popping balloons mingling with them, and a big band was set up near the bar playing "The Way You Look Tonight" by Frank Sinatra. Amazingly enough, the singer was doing an exceptional job of crooning, almost reaching Frankie's level of quality. Without even realizing it, he headed to the bar for some wine, finding himself moving in step with the beat of the song.

"Bartender, I'll take a glass of Arcadia Merlot, please."

The bartender nodded and produced a glass and a bottle of the stuff, flipping it about between his hands before popping the top and pouring Timothy half a glass. "Thank you, sir."

"My pleasure," the bartender replied and walked to the other end.

Timothy stood with his back to the throngs of Rapture's citizens who were milling about, sipping on the soothing alcohol in his hand until a touch on the shoulder brought him back to reality. And it wasn't just any hand...

"Well if it isn't Timothy Vanderbilt," a soft female voice cooed from behind.

Tim looked over his shoulder and his heart nearly exploded from the sudden increase in his heart rate. There stood Maria Sherman in a dark red, form-fitting dress that ended just barely above her knees, with very little make-up on save for some eye shadow and powder for her cheeks. Her red hair, curly and shoulder-length, stood out just as much as the dress itself. For being the same age as he, she was a very stunning woman.

_Remember the game plan, buddy. Play it cool. _In order to avoid an awkward silence, Timothy replied in a subtly seductive tone, "And if it isn't Maria Sherman. How are you doing tonight?"

He noticed she was holding her own glass of wine in her hand, which was almost empty. "I'm doing very well, Timmy. Very well."

Tim gave her the once-over again, slowly scanning his eyes up and down her body. "You really do look gorgeous tonight."

She beamed at the compliment. "Aw, thank you Timothy! You're so sweet. You look pretty handsome tonight also."

Maria saying that he looked handsome made him recall his own (fake) observation in the bathroom, and he laughed out loud. She gave him a puzzled look and asked, "What's so funny?"

Timothy, intent on playing it cool, smiled into his wine glass, finishing it all in one gulp. It tasted like shit when chugged like that, but he had a reason for doing so.

"Don't worry about it." He placed the wine glass up on the bar, and took hers from her hand as well. "Let's dance, shall we?"

In a move that surprised her, Timothy scooped her off of the floor and picked her up in his arms. She squeeled with surprise as he carried her to where everyone else was dancing, while laughing and jokingly yelling, "Put me down, you jerk!"

By this time, the band was playing another Frank Sinatra song, entitled "Come Fly With Me." Jacob Norris liked to play it while he worked, but he hadn't earlier today because he had misplaced it. Taking her right hand in his left, Tim put his other hand on her right side and she put her other hand on his arm and they started to dance.

"I never knew you could dance so...gracefully," Maria whispered into his ear.

Timothy grinned. "Truthfully, neither did I. I was half expecting to trip over your feet. We'd both get sent tumbling."

She giggled and slapped his arm playfully as the music went on. "Hey, I think your sister is watching us."

Confused, Tim looked in the direction she was pointing out. Sure enough, Jenny was standing near a table watching himself and Maria dance, a huge grin on her face. She waved energetically and to Maria, it was the cutest thing.

"Aw!" she squeeled. She waved back with her free hand. "Your sister is so cute, Timmy."

_Here it comes, _he thought suddenly. The unexpected moment had arrived, and he was surprised he had latched on to it. "You know what else is cute?"

"What?" Maria asked.

When his back was to his sister, Timothy leaned in and brushed his lips on the side of her neck. Half-expecting to be slapped, he was surprised when he felt her body shiver. "You are."

"Do it again, Timmy," she said, with a hint of pleasure. He did so, and she pressed her body closer to him. "You hit the right spot, darling."

Timothy smiled and did it again. "I've liked you for a very long time, Maria."

"And you, as well, Timmy. Not many men down here have made me as happy as you."

Timothy clamped her hand a little more tightly at that, and now came the next part. "Do you want to go somewhere more, uh, private love?"

It was Maria's turn to grin, albeit with a mischievous streak. "That sounds amazing."

*******  
After the two managed to sneak away and find the restaraunt manager's quarters (since she basically slept where she worked), Tim had some of the greatest sex ever. Then again, it was only his first time, but contrary to what some of his fellow welders said, nothing seemed to have went wrong. It also happened to be Maria's first time also.

As they lay entangled within the covers of the Kashmir owner's bed, Maria exhaled loudly. "That was great. The best."

Timothy leaned over to her and kissed her on the lips. "Happy New Year's, baby."

"Happy New Year's," she said in return, looking into his deep brown eyes and smiling.

"Shit, what time is it?" Timothy reached across to the night stand for his suit jacket, hoping to dig out his pocket watch. "I'm pretty sure I didn't hear a countdown or anything--"

As he was rummaging through the pockets, and much to his chagrin, the syringe fell out of the pocket and clattered to the floor. "Shit..." he muttered, hoping Maria wouldn't see it.

"What?" she asked alarmingly, and as Tim felt her move across the bed to see what the cause of his cursing was, he pushed on the syringe with two fingers and sent it under the bed.

"Nothing," he said quickly, producing the pocket watch a few seconds later. _That was close._

But without getting the chance to check the time, he could hear the loud chanting of everyone in the Kashmir: "Ten...nine...eight..."

Timothy and Maria counted down the remaining seconds with them, in the silence of the bedroom, and then yelled "Happy New Year!" when everyone else did. They shared another kiss, and it was then they heard the band launch back into another swing song.

Maria was the first to stand, and Timothy didn't like it. "Where are you going, love?"

"Mother might worry about me soon, disappearing and all." She began to put her dress on, having difficulty at first, and when she saw Tim start to rise off the bed, she held up a hand. "It's fine. I got it."

"You sure?" he asked, but before she could reply, they both felt the ground shake with immense force.

_What was that?_ Tim thought with panic. It didn't sound normal. "Did you hear that?"

Maria nodded, a concerned look on her face. "Hold on. Let me go see what it is. You're not exactly in the best state right now."

Timothy laughed, and nodded. She disappeared from the room, not bothering to put her high heels back on.

It was only when the ground shook a second time and heard individual popping noises out in the restaurant did Timothy begin to think something was amiss. _Why does that sound like firecrackers going off?_

Then it hit him. What he was hearing weren't firecrackers: it was gunshots. In a panic, Timothy threw back the covers, standing stark naked in the room until he began to put his pants and dress shirt on. He hastily buttoned up the shirt, and put on his shoes. That bad feeling was now hitting full-force and making his stomach churn.

_Please, dear God, I hope this isn't what I think it is! _

Timothy was about to dash out of the room, when he remembered the syringe under the bed. He swiped it off the hard wood floor, and sprinted out of the bedroom and down the hall back to the restaurant.

He wished he hadn't, because what he saw before him couldn't have been real. On the far side of the Kashmir, the entrance set in piles of rubble and smoke, with small fires bursting near the doorframe. The ground didn't shake...it was explosives!

"Fuck!" he exclaimed, seeing the masses of people running about and panicking, looking for a way out. He suddenly realized that there really had been alot of people here tonight, as it was extremely hard to make it through the sea of people to find his parents and Jenny.

"Jenny!" he cried out amongst the screaming. It was then that he got a glimpse of what had caused the explosions. Men and women with revolvers and shotguns, some wearing masks, and others not, but of those who weren't, something looked terribly...wrong with them. Almost as if they didn't look human, but they were; just horribly mutated with bulbous growths protruding from random spots on their bodies.

_What in the fuck is going on?!_ he thought, almost tripping over something. To his horror, it was his mother, who was laying on the ground clutching her cheek, blood dripping out between the fingers.

"Mother!" he cried, kneeling next to her and holding her in his arms. "Mother, where's father? Where's Jenny?"

Porschia tried to speak, her eyes welling up with tears, but with the bullet having entered the side of her face and breaking all her teeth, she couldn't. All she could do was point to where his father was, who was toward the back of the Kashmir. Soon after, she went limp in his arms, dead. "I'm so sorry, mother. I love you."

With adrenalin coursing through his body, he stood up and almsot fell over in shock, but managed to make it to the back. It was like a classic scene from a mobster movie he saw once, a shootout with men wielding revolvers and Tommy Guns and shotguns.

He found his father with a bunch of other men he recognized who worked for his steel-making company here in Rapture. "Father!"

"Timothy! Thank god you're alright! What the hell is going on?"

A bullet almost hit Timothy in the shoulder, and he dove to the ground behind a table his father and one of his workers had overturned. "I don't know! Mother's dead, father. She died in my arms."

"Goddamn it!" For a second, it looked like his father was about to cry, but he didn't. "Son, have you seen your sister? She was right behind me--"

Then the unthinkable happened. Things couldn't possibly have gotten any worse, but they always did. A shrill scream for help so piercing, yet so disturbingly familiar, that it made Timothy well up with fear and anger.

"Timmy!" Jenny cried from somewhere out in the crowd. "Help! Get him off of me!"

He scanned the crowd of panicking people that were still being shot at, and spotted a massive figure carrying a smaller one under his arm like a football; it was running for another exit out of the Kashmir. Without even thinking, he picked up a spare revolver laying on the ground nearby, and made a run for the mysterious figure. He could his father yelling after him, but right now, all he could do was focus. Jenny was his younger sister. Whatever was happening right now was insignifcant: she was the only thing that mattered.

"Go get Jenny!" Alan yelled over the chaos. He too must've heard Jenny. "We'll hold them off as long as we can. Son of a bitch!"

Timothy pushed his way through people, strong-arming and elbowing him until he emerged into a long dimmly-lit hallway, where it was just him and the kidnapper. But already the kidnapper had a signifcant lead over him, and was just about to turn a corner when the kidnapper spun around and took potshots at Tim.

Not wanting to get hit, Timothy dove behind a food cart and was about to return fire, only to discover that the revolver was empty. "Son of a bitch!"

He threw it to the ground and sprinted down the hallway, rounding the corner where the kidnapper had gone, and discovered he had taken a roundabout way to the Rapture Metro station. He now found himself behind the attackers of the Kashmir, who were too busy firing away to take notice behind them. Tim thought he had seen the attacker head to the bathysphere, and made a break for it.

Yet what he discovered upon entering the bathysphere was most unexpected: he found the kidnapper dead on the floor of the bathysphere, a pool of blood rapidly forming around his body. Jenny was nowhere to be found.

"No!" Timothy collapsed to his knees in despair, his face in his hands.

The bathysphere door suddenly clanged shut behind him, locking him inside. It began to sank into the waters below, despite him not having activated the lever.

He ran over to the bathysphere, banging on its glass porthole, demanding to be let out. Then the P.A. came to life...

"Citizens of Rapture, this is Andrew Ryan. I have been told there are reports of riots and attacks throughout our fair city, with Atlas being at the helm. To prevent this parasite and his lackey apes from taking control of the city, I have suspended the use of the Rapture Metro until further notice."

A strange gas began to pump through the bathysphere's vents, green in color, but odorless. It wasn't poison, because it didn't burn or sear his lungs or skin, but it made Timothy very sleepy. As much as he tried to fight it, his eyelids could not stay open, and he passed out.


	3. Chapter 2

_Freefall_

_Chapter 2_

There was a void, dark and hollow, which seemed to fill Tim's mind. Every demon was screaming for his blood, and as much as he tried to fight them off, they were closing in rapidly.

"Get out of my head!" Timothy cried, lurching up and slashing at the air wildly. His entire body was drenched in sweat, nightmares in different forms invading his mind. It took him a few minutes to adjust to the bright lights of the bathysphere.

_Wait, I'm still in here,_ he realized with surprise. He felt the cold metal of the interior to make sure he wasn't dreaming stil--nope, it was real. The next thing he noticed was the pungent vapor in the air, which caused him to look at the floor to where Jenny's kidnapper lie, a dry pool of blood staining the metal. In anger, he spit on the corpse.

The only time a body smelled was from burnt flesh or decay, and it was definitely the latter. Not wanting to be trapped in the stench, Timothy moved to the porthole to see if the bathysphere had risen into the Metro Station, which it had. With surprisingly little effort, he pushed the porthole open and caught himself before hitting the floor. He stood quickly, brushing himself off, and looked around only to discover a new problem.

He wasn't at the Kashmir's Metro Station.

In fact, the Metro Station resembled that of Fort Frolic's, which he had only been to once. Other than Olympus Heights, the Kashmir, and Neptune's Bounty, Timothy had never really explored Rapture in full. How he ended up where he was now would remain a mystery for the time being.

Vanderbilt noticed how the Station wasn't very well-lit, something that struck him as strange. Just then, the bathysphere's porthole clanged shut behind Tim, its locks audibly clicking into place. An eerie silence followed soon after. Whereever he was, he wouldn't be leaving any time soon.

_What the hell is going on?_ he wondered.

Before him, hanging slightly above his head, was a large sign. Vanderbilt couldn't make out the lettering as most of it was obscured in shadow, so he walked closer and squinted to see it better. He could tell it was made of bronze, outlined with gold trim. A tall high-rise building was depicted on the left side and the lettering was in gold also.

"Athena's Glory?" Vanderbilt stammered quietly. "How is this possible? Just how long have I been out for..."

With a sense of dread overcoming him, he ran for the entrance of the Metro Station to check the automated time clock which showed the current month, day, and year.

_No, _he thought. _No, no, no. This can't be right. It must be malfunctioning._

Staring back at him in giant red letters and numbers was the date: June 17, 1959.

With great difficulty, Timothy managed to reach a bench that set against a square, steel pillar that the time clock was mounted against and fell onto it.

"What the hell happened to me?" he whispered, all alone in the Metro Station. He placed his elbows on his knees, his hands cradling his forehead. "How could I be out for six months?"

Then he remembered the gas that had pumped into the bathysphere. _Knock-out gas? But why?_

Tim was having a hard time recalling everything that had happened...or rather, _believing_ it had happened six months ago when it only felt like a few hours.

"Jenny," he uttered suddenly, remembering that she had gone missing in the Kashmir attack. His eyes became moist, and a tear streaked down his face. Soon, more tears followed until he was curled up in a ball on the bench, weeping quietly.

_Jenny, I'm so sorry. I failed you. I wasn't the brother I should've been. I should've been there, stayed in the main room, kept my eyes on you at all times--_

All the while as Tim was deep in his own grief, he hadn't noticed the sound of someone's voice speaking from beneath him until they finally shouted, "Can you hear me?! Is anyone there?!"

Timothy looked up, then down between his legs, and saw a radio pulsing on the floor. "Hello? Is someone there?" the voice repeated.

Hesitantly, the eighteen year-old reached under the bench and picked up the square two-way radio, which was about the size of his hand. He pressed a red button on the side of it, and asked, "Who is this?"

"Oh, thank Christ, finally a voice," the male voice replied. He had a strange accent that Timothy couldn't place, but it sounded British. "Name's Bill McDonagh, lad."

"I know who you are," Timothy said with a glint of recognition. "I read about you in the _Rapture Tribune_ one. You're one of the city council members, yes?"

"That's right. Well, former member now."

_Former? _Tim thought. "Listen, Bill, I need to ask you some questions. Do you remember the attack on the Kashmir restaurant?"

"Yes, indeed. Quite the bloody massacre I heard. Upwards of a hundred folks or more, murdered by Atlas' thugs and bitches. Why do ya ask me boy?"

For the next few minutes, Timothy explained to Bill what had happened at the Kashmir, about Jenny's kidnapping, being knocked out inside the bathysphere, and waking up in Athena's Glory. When he was done, there was silence until Bill finally spoke.

"Six months, you say?" Bill's voice was laced with puzzlement. "That's quite unheard of, what with everything that's been going on in this damned leaking tub of a city. I mean, I just now saw your bathysphere rise into the Metro--says so right here on my screen."

"Wait, you're in Athena's Glory?" Tim asked, surprised that he was here.

"Right as rain, lad. Athena's Glory is even more ritzier than Olympus Heights...all of Rapture's major players live here, 'cluding myself, Doctor Steinman, Julie Langford, and Andrew Ryan himself. And by way of Atlantic Express, Olympus Heights is right next to this damn place. But the tram got taken out about two months ago."

Timothy, who had been sitting on the bench, swung his legs up and layed horizontal, placing the radio on his chest. "As dumb as this may sound, I've never really explored Rapture in full. So I don't really know where I am in relation to the Kashmir."

McDonagh laughed. "Really now? Kid, you're on the other bloody side of Rapture. And I'm sure you remember the porthole closing on that metal prison behind ya? Yeah, you're lucky. I managed to locate a hidden, false wall with the nerve center for this place, where Ryan could control and see everything in Athena's Glory. I was able to raise that bathysphere and temporarily end it's lockdown state, but soon as I did, I must've triggered something, 'cuz a machine gun turret rose and nearly killed me. I got out of that nerve center while I could.

"Now, I have something quite like that nerve center I mentioned in my own room. But, that turret made a lot of racket and attracted the wits and eyes of a couple Splicers. So I'm stuck in my apartment, lad."

"I need to find my sister, Bill. Would you be willing to help me? I help you, you help me? Why do you need to end the lockdown anyways?"

Again, Bill laughed, the distortion over the radio being louder than Timothy would've liked. "Funny you mention that--"

Just then, Timothy heard the sound of a bulkhead door opening at the front of the Metro Station. "Shit," he whispered harshly.

"What is it?" the former council member asked wearily.

"Quiet!" Tim whispered again. "I think someone just entered the Metro Station."

Timothy put the radio inside of his pants pocket, and realized that he didn't have any weapons to fight back with. _Oh hell, that's just great,_ he thought worriedly, as he tip-toed as quickly and quietly as possible back toward the bathysphere.

The footsteps were slowly getting closer, and Tim could hear what sounded like metal scraping against the floor. It wasn't a harsh terrible noise, but it was definitely noticable. Timothy hid at the end of a long, narrow rectangular bench, crouched down and using his left eye's peripheral vision to see the approaching person.

"Holy shit, if it isn't the bathysphere!" a male voice exclaimed. It was deep and throaty, and sounded as though it were in pain. "Fan-fucking-tastic!"

The footsteps started up again, and this time Timothy had no choice but to move to the other side of the bench opposite of the approaching person. He stayed in a low crouch as he moved away. He stopped to get a look at the man as he stepped into the light.

From the back, he looked normal enough, but when he cocked his head to glance at the wall on his right, something was seriously wrong. The man wore a bunny mask that covered up all but his mouth; the entire mask was nearly stained with blood. Vanderbilt swore up and down that he saw some sort of bulbous growth protruding out of the man's neck. His black sweater vest was torn in a couple of places, as were the back of his brown trousers. Timothy suddenly noticed the smell the man gave off, worse than anything he had ever inhaled, and he couldn't place a finger on what it reminded him of.

He was holding a length of pipe in his right hand, tapping it on the ground to a beat. Blood slid down the pipe before beginning to pool on the floor.

"Boy, what's going on?" Bill whispered over the radio. Timothy tensed up, and began frantically fumbling about in his pocket for the switch to turn the radio off. _You dumbass, you forgot to turn it off!_

It was when he accidentally bumped his foot into the bench that the man, so resembling one of the myriad of attackers he saw at the Kashmir, go ram-rod straight at the noise Tim made. The Splicer giggled, and while still facing the bathysphere said, "Oh, it looks like we have a guest tonight. Where are you, guest of honor?"

Timothy cursed many times over and ran in a crouch to the other end of the bench, repeating the same thing he did earlier, except this time the Splicer wasn't dragging the pipe on the ground.

_What the fuck do I do! _It was then he felt his other pants pocket and discovered he still had that syringe from...six months earlier. As the Splicer was creeping ever close, taunting him, Vanderbilt prepared to move around the bench again while quietly removing the syringe. He looked at his wrist, then the needle, then his wrist again.

_Here goes nothing,_ he thought as he stuck the end of the syringe into the big vein of his wrist, not even sure if he was doing it right.

With a wild burst of energy, Tim's left wrist bent sharply and he felt such intense pain course throughout his body that he was struggling to keep quiet. At the same time, he found himself sitting on his ass scooting further along the side of the bench. Finally, with his back leaning against the bench, the pain subsided. He closed his eyes and slumped his head back on the bench.

Opening his eyes yielded a new problem, though. For when he did, there was the bunny mask Splicer staring at him. He grinned, revealing a set of yellow teeth and putrid breath.

"Hello, fucker!" the Splicer cried, a little too joyfully for the situation. Timothy yelled in surprise and jerked his head forward to avoid the pipe that was swung at his head. He stumbled to his feet, looking at his left hand which now had a small trail of wind circling about it.

_What the hell?_ Vanderbilt thought, but had no time to give it further thought as the Splicer came at him again.

"Oh, don't run! Stick around please! I'm sure the meal will be ready soon!" The Splicer cut the air horizontally with the pipe, and Timothy out of fear fell on his ass at the sight of the weapon. Seeing his opportunity, he shoved his heel into the Splicer's crotch. Obviously in pain, the Splicer grabbed at its crotch and went down on one knee. In the same breath, with Tim holding his left hand up and not even realizing it, he suddenly found the pipe floating in the air in front of him.

_Is this some sort of telekinetic ability I have now?_ He shot his fingers outward at the Splicer, and the pipe went hurling into the Splicer's face. At such a close range, the effect was devastating and while it didn't kill the Splicer out right, the force of the blow sent him tumbling back over the bench.

Having enough sense after recovering from the shock of his new ability, Timothy grabbed the pipe off the floor of the Station and hopped to his feet. He didn't know what came over him--maybe it was grief, maybe it was rage--but he savagely beat the hell out of his attacker over and over and over, almost to the point of mush. The face was barely recognizable and Tim only stopped when he heard McDonagh's voice over the radio.

"Stop, lad! He's dead!" Bill bellowed.

Confused, Tim looked into his pocket and pulled out the radio. In the frenzy, the radio must've turned back on by mistake. "I...don't know what came over me."

"There are cameras all about this place. I watched the whole thing. Nice use of the Telekinesis plasmid by the way."

Shocked, Tim looked at the empty syringe on the ground next to the body. _Was that what it was? _he thought with disbelief. He had only heard about plasmids, that they were just in testing, but apparently what he had found back in the bathysphere six months ago was indeed a plasmid.

"I didn't catch your name, boy. What is your name?" Bill asked curiously.

It took Tim some time to respond. "Oh, sorry. I got lost in thought. My name's Timothy. Timothy Vanderbilt."

McDonagh laughed lightheartedly. "My boy, the way you handled yourself was awesome. I think I'll be able to help you find your sister..._if _you help me kill Andrew Ryan. Meet me in my apartment. Room number is 313. Third floor."


	4. Chapter 3

_Freefall_

_Chapter 3_

"Bill, what the hell was that...thing I just killed?" Timothy asked wearily, the realization that he killed a man not yet setting in, despite how he sat on the bench next to the corpse he just created.

"Ah, Timmy...that was once a man," Bill replied sadly. "He had a bit too much ADAM, went crazy, insane, bonkers, skipped a loo. After the Kashmir--"

"Hold on," Vanderbilt interrupted. "In all honesty, I never really paid much attention to any of the going-ons of the scientific elite. Do you mind telling me what ADAM is?"

Bill sighed, though not out of frustration--more of the fact that ADAM was even invented. "A Doctor Tenebaum discovered it one day when a dock worker at Neptune's Bounty had found a sea slug and it had cured his hands, which he had lost use of years before. It basically rewrites the genetic code of any living thing, twists up the double helix and all. From there, she got her research funded by Frank Fontaine, the slimiest bastard this side of Hell.

"Soon, Dr. Suchong entered the picture, making all sorts of crazy things called Plasmids--anything is possible, kid. Fire from your fingertips, freezing targets into blocks of ice--what you have there is Telekinesis. You can pick up objects from a distance, and hurl them back. Suchong managed to convert ADAM into another substance called EVE, which is used to 'recharge' your supply of ADAM when it's low. Point is, ADAM is bringing about the collapse of Rapture, and we're in a goddamn civil war."

"Civil war?" Timothy mused. He had known all along that something didn't feel right that night of the attack. "Damn, my hunch _was_ correct."

"What hunch? What do you mean?"

"The night of the Kashmir attack...I had this feeling in my gut that something bad was going to happen. Really bad. I don't know why, but it was there. There was...tension. I could feel it. I was working on the day of the attack and some of the glances I was catching from people just felt...like I was trash to them. A hatred between the lower and upper classes."

Bill whistled at the young man's words. "That's something, Timmy. It seems like you predicted this whole thing before anyone else. You're sharp, my boy. That's going to serve you well in whatever lies ahead for you."

Timothy looked at the corpse, and with the adrenalin starting to wear off, he retched at the sight of the man's bloodied head. He was fortunate he didn't spray his stomach contents on his shoes--that would've been disgusting, to say the least.

"I'm fine," he said before Bill could interject. He really wasn't, but he had to act like it for his own sake. "I'm just...shocked, I guess."

He picked up the length of pipe, and clipped the radio to his waist-line. He got up from the bench, careful not to step in his own vomit, and held the pipe in one hand. It did not weigh him down at all, unlike the Splicer who had to drag it along the ground. For the first time in...months, he smiled. His welding job might pay off now.

Moving at a steady clip, Tim began walking back toward the front of the Metro Station. "I'm on the move, Bill. Tell me how to get to your apartment."

"Righto. Alright, let me cycle through the cameras here..." Bill went silent for a few moments before coming back on. "Got you. Okay, as soon as you exit the Metro Station, you'll be in a lobby, almost like a hotel's reception area. Do you see a desk in front of you on the right?"

As Timothy walked through the door, pipe at the ready, he looked to his left and right and noticed that they stretched down a good ways, and he saw what he thought were indentions in the wall. _Most likely doors to more apartments_, he thought absentmindedly.

"Yeah, I see it," he replied. The interior of Athena's Glory was extremely ornate, at least from what he could tell--it seemed as though the place was only half-lit by light. It seemed as though every piece of furniture or surface was made from gold, or fake gold; what light there was reflected off of the walls and played with his mind, causing shadows to dance about. "Hey, how come half of this place is dark?"

"Main power supply got destroyed awhile back--back-ups are on. I'd go repair the thing myself but I'm old and it's too dangerous, y'know?"

"Whatever you say," Tim replied with a snarky edge to his voice.

"Now, directly across from that desk are three elevators. I think the middle one is working. Take that to the third floor. There's a camera set up above the elevator doors that sweeps back and forth and covers the entire hallway, for the most part. I'll see you when you get here."

Pressing the Up button next to the double doors, Timothy waited a few seconds for the doors to part, and he stepped in. He punched in the button reading '3' and the doors began to close.

With his pipe in his right hand, and his Telekinesis plasmid pulsing through his left, he was ready for anything. He would rather have a gun, but for now, he tried not to let himself get too tense and nervous as the elevator car slowly creeped up the shaft.

*******

When the elevator car stopped on the third floor of Athena's Glory, the doors parted to a canvass of darkness, and Timothy felt vulnerable standing in the car's single light. He held his pipe up in front of him, ready to strike if need be.

"Hold up, lad," Bill whispered. "I only got one section of the hallway covered. When the camera pans back around, go left down the hall and count eleven lights. Once you count that many, enter the door on the left."

"Understood. Hey, Bill, just how long have you been caged in this place for?"

"About a month or so now. Lost me damned razor, so now I look like a wolf." He chuckled. "Oye! Focus now, laddy. The hall is clear from what I can see, so head out. I'll watch your back as best as I can."

Slowly, Vanderbilt crept out of the elevator car, wondering why counting lights was even necessary, until he noticed that the numbers of the apartments were not visible, most likely shrouded in shadow. Throughout each side of the corridor, little back up lights were spaced evenly between each other. Taking in a deep breath, he exhaled as he began walking cautiously down the hall. Despite how cool the hallway was, Tim could feel beads of sweat form on his neck.

As he counted lights while constantly looking behind him, he couldn't shake the feeling that someone other than Bill was watching him.

"Ashes, ashes, blowing in the wind," a low female voice said, seemingly from nowhere. Tim stopped in a pool of shadow, backing against one of the walls. "Ashes, ashes, you die, I live."

_Where the_ fuck _are you! _his mind screamed. The voice sounded distant, yet at the same time it felt like a whisper in his ear. It was a jarring, terrifying sensation. _Is she...singing?_

"Daddy, daddy, he will eat you," the voice continued in a sing-song cadence. "Can't see me, but I can see you!"

At those words--Timothy didn't even care about any commotion he caused--he started running. There were only a few more lights left, but he could hear footsteps rapidly stamping upon the carpeted floor behind him.

Bill must've heard him coming because Timothy heard, rather than saw, a door open to his left up ahead. Light filtered out into the semi-dark corridor, and it felt like Timothy was a rabbit on a treadmill, with the door being the proverbial carrot in front of his face. "Get in here, Timmy!"

Dropping the pipe, Vanderbilt picked up the pace, and just as he was about to blast by the door, he hooked his fingertips into the door frame, and used his momentum to propel himself through Bill's apartment door.

But for a second, he caught a glimpse behind him, and was terrified of what he saw. For behind him was a woman even more grotesque than the man he had killed. Her robin's egg dress was torn at the hips and chest, exposing one of her pus-oozing and bloody breasts, and half of her face looked like it had been burned and covered up with skin. Only one eye was visible, but it tracked him and closed in on him. All Tim heard was a blood-curdling scream as a gust of air sailed through the spot he had just occupied.

Bill slammed the door shut, with the sound of various locks clicking in place followed by a loud scraping noise. Bent over at the waist, Timothy's hands were on his knees and he was breathing heavily. He looked over his shoulder, and saw a large wooden structure--a closet, from the looks of it-- shoved in front of the door. Next to it was his so-called "guardian angel", holding a revolver.

"You got long legs, lad. The way you outran--"

"I thought you said the hallway was clear," Tim interrupted. His anger wasn't lost on Bill.

"Aye, I'm sorry!" Bill held his arms up in a defensive gesture. "It was...well, I thought it was. I didn't think the Shadow Splicers would pick up on your scent so fast, though."

Bill McDonagh looked to be in his mid to late 40s, with a thick salt and pepper beard covering his face, which was a change from the clean-shaven moustache Timothy remembered him sporting in the Rapture Tribune. His light brown hair looked like it was graying, as well as thinning in some areas.

_Old age or stress?_ Tim wondered. He shrugged to himself, and watched as Bill stepped past him, slightly favoring his right leg. It was then that the eighteen year old noticed the two machine gun turrets set up on either side of the foyer, their green lights indicating they were friendly. Even with the closet over the door, as well as the heavy duty locks, Bill took his security seriously.

"Follow me, Timmy," Bill called out, having disappeared into another room. "And enter my command post for the past month."

Timothy followed the sound of McDonagh's voice, and was amazed at what he saw upon entering. On the left side of the room was a security hub, with the entire wall nearly lined with monitors and control panels. To his right was a metal wall with a king-sized bed, garnished with red covers and pillows outlined in gold trim. Finally, at the far end of the room directly in front of him was a gigantic floor-to-ceiling window that gave a beautiful view of Rapture, truly showing how mammoth the city was. That thought also gave way to the fact that Jenny could be anywhere, and not having explored the city, he was starting to lose hope.

_Jenny...you could be anywhere right now. I hope I find you._

"This is quite the setup you got here," Tim said. He needed to focus on getting out of Athena's Glory, and focus on finding his sister. Having no solid leads was a problem, though.

"It is indeed, Timmy," McDonagh replied in agreement. He was bent over behind one of the consoles, seemingly fixing something. "Even Chief Sullivan doesn't have a setup quite like this. It became even more useful after being shut up in this place for a month."

He looked up from behind the console and jabbed a finger over the top toward the plush bed. "Take a seat, me lad. I'm sure you've got some questions."

"I do, yes. There's one thing that confuses me...how was I able to stay alive inside of the bathysphere for six months?" Timothy sat down at the foot of the bed, his arms at his sides.

McDonagh crawled out from behind the console, and sat down in a wooden chair at the foot of the bed, his arms balanced on the rickety back-rest. "When Anton Kinkaide came to me and Ryan about designing the bathysphere, he spoke of putting in a fail-safe, where if Ryan needed to lock the city down, the bathysphere could be put into a stasis, and a knock-out gas would be filtered through the vents. Supposed to contain all the nutrients the body needed, so the people inside could stay alive for the length of the lockdown.

"When the attack on the Kashmir occurred, Ryan heard of it within minutes and he locked the entire city down. The Kashmir wasn't the only place that was hit by Atlas and his goons--Ryan Amusements was also attacked, and temporarily cut off from the rest of Rapture. From what I understand, many people perished as a result of that. Unlike the rest of the city, where the lockdown lasted for about a day, Ryan Amusements was sealed off for a full week."

"Jesus...so what could be the reason for my six month nap?"

Bill rolled his chair over to the left side of the bed, where a small metal bucket filled with ice sat. In it were various bottles of liquor, and he pulled out a bottle of Old Tom Whiskey and took a large sip. "Want some?"

"No thank you," Timothy replied, holding his hands up to futher emphasis his answer.

"Okay." Bill rolled back over to the console to face Timothy. "As for your little slumber, in all honesty, I remember Ryan mentioning that the bathysphere was missing from the Kashmir's Metro Station, so he had another one constructed to replace the one containing you. Shortly after the construction of the bathysphere, the Atlantic Express was officially put into business, and seeing as though the bathysphere that connected the Kashmir to Olympus Heights and Athena's Glory was gone, there was no need to reopen the Metro Station here. That is, until it surfaced."

Timothy leaned back onto Bill's bed, his hands interlocked behind his head. He stared intensely at the ceiling. "You mentioned you found some kind of nerve center, where Ryan could see and control everything, and that you managed to end the lockdown? What prompted you to do that?"

Bill smiled. "Curiosity, my boy, and a hunch. Think about it: a bathysphere disappearing all on its own? Sounded like bloody bollocks to me. I reworked the circuitry on the Metro Station down below, just to see what would happen, and you can imagine my surprise when the lockdown temporarily ended. Of course, you could also imagine my surprise when that machine gun turret almost had me!"

McDonagh laughed at his own lucky survival, and Timothy smiled. He had to admit, the old man had guts and one hell of a will to live in order to still be around in the hell Andrew Ryan had created. Then a more serious question with potentially dire ramifications popped into Tim's mind. "You mentioned wanting to kill Ryan earlier...why?"

At this, Bill frowned almost at the flick of a switch, and took a long pull of his whiskey before answering. "Because the motherfucker let his ideals get in the way! I was one of his closest friends and advisors, and while I saw the Rapture dream in the same way he did when it was first constructed, once ADAM hit the market, I knew it wouldn't be good for Rapture.

"I tried to warn him, but the arrogant poppycock wouldn't listen! There was a chance to save this beautiful place, but he couldn't see it. And then it hit me...the only way to end the madness was to eliminate the man himself. Don't get me wrong, he's a great man, but his ideals cloud his judgment."

Timothy nodded soberly, genuinely agreeing with Bill. "Fair enough. So where is he now?"

"Probably barricaded in his office in Rapture Central Control, which is a fair distance away from here."

"So if I help you get out of here, you will try and help me find my sister."

"Exactly. And here's the plan."


	5. Chapter 4

_Freefall_

_Chapter 4_

"I'm all ears, Bill," Timothy said, leaning forward and clasping his hands together. "Let's hear it."

Taking another sip of his Old Tom Whiskey, Bill lurched forward in the wooden chair and stood. "Follow me to my workshop, lad. I got some supplies you'll need."

Timothy stood and followed behind Bill as they crossed the foyer past the two machine guns into another room. Bill flicked on the lights, and the room became awash in the glow of two lightbulbs on opposite ends of the room. Shelves and tables were up against each wall, with various pieces of scrap metal, tools, and strange bottles littering the spaces.

"Ignore the mess, Timmy. Come over here." The pair approached a work bench that was the farthest away from the door they just entered, and Bill held up one of the strange bottles which glowed with a green substance.

"What's that?" Timothy asked hesitantly. He noticed that the top of the bottle had an evil-looking face on it that glowed red. It made him shiver.

"This is one of Rapture's most closely guarded secrets," McDonagh replied. "It was developed in tandem with ADAM and the Plasmids Suchong cooked up. Tests involving the use of Plasmids over time showed that with the advantage of rewritten genetics, came the rapid loss of all mental capacities. To counteract these effects, Ryan pushed Suchong to invent a sort of antidote to the ADAM's side effects.

"However, Suchong being Suchong, he wasn't really enthusiastic about it, saying that it was much more difficult at reverse-engineering the damned slugs' cells, and only a few antidotes were produced. I happened to acquire one in case this hellhole got to a point where I might've needed it. Now that won't be necessary."

Handing the ADAM antidote to Timothy, who continued to stare at it, Bill produced an empty syringe. He stabbed it through the top of the bottle, sucking some of the liquid into the chamber, and handed it to Tim.

With great reluctance, the young welder cringed as he plunged the needle into the vein of his left wrist, though it wasn't as bad as it was the first time.

"There we go," Bill said, standing back. "That wasn't so bad the second time now, was it?"

Tim nodded. "So I'm safe to splice without turning into one of those...things, correct?"

"Correct. However, Splicers sometimes wield weapons, which is where I give you this next piece of your arsenal."

Bill disappeared beneath the work bench, rummaging about for several minutes until he finally found what he was looking for. "Got ya!" he announced, pulling his head out and nearly clobbering it on the edge of the work bench.

In his hands was a lock-box, similar to what Tim would've carried around while doing a job. It looked ordinary enough, but as he was learning, Bill McDonagh was no ordinary man.

"This is something special I hold dear to me heart, lad," Bill said, his words heartfelt. He placed the lock-box on the work bench, and unhooked the clasps. It popped open to reveal a beautiful red velvet interior but it's what lay inside the box that made Tim's eyes go wide.

Inside of it was a weapon he had never seen before, but it looked beautiful nonetheless. It looked radically different from the revolver he had seen Bill holding, which was now in a holster on his hip.

Bill smiled as he picked up the weapon from the lock-box and held it in his hand. "I can see by the look on your face that you've never seen one of these before?"

Timothy rapidly shook his head. "No way. What is it?"

"It was officially known as the M1911A1, but commonly called the Colt. A good friend of mine, whom this pistol belonged to, died during the second world war," Bill replied. "Some far-away place in France called Carentan. Are you familiar with it?"

"I learned about it in school, but I was very young when the war was going on."

"Oh. Well, in any case, my good friend...he was one hell of a character, I'll say that. He worked with me back before the war. Young guy. Name was Francis Gladwell--I always called him Frank. Story goes, according to a letter his war buddy sent me, that he was shot in the leg during the Battle of Carentan and he was bleeding out. The Allies had to fall back because of the Germans counterattacking, but he insisted on killing every last son-of-a-bitch Kraut that came his way. His last words, apparently.

"Without ammunition for his Tommy Gun, he pulled out this pistol, set up a good position to where he could fire, and let load. He went through two clips before the Nazi bastards found him and killed him. Seven rounds a mag, plus another...that's fourteen bloody Krauts down for the count."

"That's incredible," Timothy stated, awe-struck at the bravery that Bill's friend had exhibited. "I don't know if I could've done that."

"Neither could I," McDonagh admitted. "He was a crazy bugger to begin with. Irish. Loved to drink. Ever since I learned of his demise, I've taken good care in maintaining this side-arm. I've never used it myself, and before that day, Frank had never used his Colt. So in a sense this piece is still a virgin."

"So why are you showing this to me?"

"Because I like you, Timmy. I think that with this weapon in your hands, you will be the administer of justice for the poor souls who snatched up ya sister."

Timothy didn't know what to say. He felt humbled by having such a weapon handed over to him, something he knew wouldn't have been easy for Bill to do. Bill held the weapon out in his hand, grip pointed at the young welder with the barrel pointing to the floor. Tim gingerly took it in his hands, turning it over and studying it thoroughly.

"Do you know how to use a weapon, Timmy?" Bill asked.

He nodded. "My father and I used to shoot revolvers back when I was younger, on the surface. My mother never approved--" He smiled at the memory of his mother chastising his father. "--but it was great for me."

"Good, good. The Colt is no revolver, but mechanically, it's identical. The only difference is how the ammunition is loaded."

Bill spent the next couple of minutes instructing Timothy on how to properly load and unload a magazine from the chamber of the Colt, and insisted he practice this repeatedly until he felt comfortable with the motions. Once Tim felt confident he could load it, he nodded to Bill.

Bill then produced another item from beneath the work bench, which looked like a modified tool belt from what he could see in the light, the only difference being that the belt appeared to have a holster.

"One size fits all bandolier, my boy. You're right-handed, yes?" McDonagh asked. Timothy nodded. "Excellent. Then this will fit you very well. I'm telling you, a month locked up in your own damn house, and you start preparing for anything."

Noting the strange lumps on the opposite end to where the holster was, Timothy asked what they were for.

"Glad you asked. These special grooves are meant to hold spare magazines and syringes filled with EVE, which is the substance needed to recharge your body's reserve of ADAM. You'll know your low when you can feel a pulsing sensation throughout your left arm. I've never spliced myself, but Dr. Suchong briefed Ryan on everything and in turn he briefed me. Just so you know."

"I don't doubt you," Timothy replied. "Bill, I'll be honest, out of all the hell I seem to have gotten myself into, you're the first voice of reason."

Bill cringed slightly at the remark as he placed spare magazines and EVE syringes onto the modified tool belt; apparently he wasn't very receptive of praise. "Thanks, I guess. I just...I believed in Ryan. I believed in Rapture. It's just I never thought things would get this bloody bad, going down the shitter and all. And you seem like a decent young lad who needs help, and it's just in me nature to help others in need."

Finished with packing the tool belt with supplies, Bill handed it to Tim and watched as the young man before him secured the belt around his waist.

"Perfect fit," Tim remarked, moving his arms and torso about to see if he had full range of motion. "And I'm glad to know we're on the same side in this."

Bill smiled. "Oye, agreed. You and I...complete strangers. You, a young man. Me, an old geezer with a funny accent. Who would've thought?!"

Timothy chuckled. He had to admit that Bill was right. Here was one of Rapture's brightest teaming up with an unknown, common welder; it was incredible.

"So what's the plan?" Timothy asked. Bill wouldn't have set him up with all of the hardware for nothing.

"The plan is to override the bathysphere lock down, at least for Athena's Glory. When the machine gun turret chased me out of there, I dropped a remote relay device I had on me by mistake. That would've allowed me to tap into the network for this place's bathysphere station remotely, without having to step foot in there. However, with the main power supply offline, that isn't even possible. So you'll have to go into the depths of Athena's Glory to restore power. That will get the lights back on, which will help you immensely."

"What's light got to do with anything?" Timothy asked, confused. "From what I've learned as a welder, even if the main power to a section of Rapture is offline, the back-ups should still provide enough power to keep things functioning."

"You're right, but it's for more of a safety issue than anything. The Shadow Splicers...they love the dark, hate the light. Almost like a vampire from old literature. But they're sneaky buggers. They can see in the dark for the most part...love to cling to walls and ceilings, much like Spider Splicers...in fact they might as well be Athena's Spider Splicers--"

"So what you're saying is, after I go down to the basement and restore power to the building, we can end the lock down and ensure our safe passage out of here?" Timothy asked, not wanting Bill to go into any more detail. He knew his limits--if he was paralyzed with fear, he wouldn't be able to function. He was able to function better in split-second bursts, when the adrenalin was flowing.

"Right. Okay, so, the nerve center I encountered was on the fourth floor. However, seeing as though you managed to attract the attention of a Shadow Splicer, the elevator is out of the question. That was my own error because I forgot to take them into account. You'll have to take one of the staircases at either end of the hallway down to the basement and up to the fourth floor.

"Now, supposedly, Ryan's quarters are also up in that nerve center, but I didn't find them. I've never even been in the man's room before. So you'll have to do some searching to find the place. You'll need to create a genetic keycode in order to end the lock down, because Ryan coded the bathyspheres as such to restrict travel. Once that's done, it'll be smooth sailing. Are you ready, lad?"

Before Tim could reply, Bill McDonagh reached under the work bench and pulled out a flash light. "You'll need this. It'll help you to see, and ward off any Shadow Splicers. I'll be keeping an eye on you from up here through the cameras and relaying instructions via the radio."

"I'm ready. I'm scared out of my mind, but I'm ready," Timothy said. It was taking everything within him to stay in check.

"Don't worry, Timmy. Just remember, your sister may still be out there in Rapture somewhere." Bill walked over to a corner of the work shop, and moved a sheet of metal out of the way. Behind it was a small wooden door that ended about knee-high, leading to a crawlspace.

"Crawl through here, and follow the length of it. It's not very long, and leads to a cut out section off the hall. You would think the splicers would've found it by now, but apparently not."

Timothy sighed, taking a deep breath in through his nose. He crouched down and pulled the wooden door aside and began to crawl in.

"Good luck, lad," Bill said. Timothy heard the door close behind him, and the faint sound of the metal sheet being put back in its place.

As Tim slowly and quietly began to inch through the crawlspace, he flicked the flashlight on and followed its beam.

_What the hell have I gotten myself into? _he thought dreadfully.


	6. Chapter 5

_Freefall_

_Chapter 5_

With the beam of the flashlight pointing forward, Timothy finally reached the end of the crawlspace. He flicked the light off in case the beam could be seen on the other side.

"Bill, is the hallway clear?" he whispered.

The radio on his hip crackled to life, albeit in near-silence. "Yes, it looks clear. I don't see any funny-looking shadows moving about. You can leave the crawlspace now."

With extreme caution, Timothy put the flashlight in his pocket and began to move the wooden partition to the side. Slowly, he created enough space to wiggle out of the wall and end up in a kneeling position. Placing his back against the wall, he aimed the Colt up and down the corridor, as well as the ceiling while he moved the partition back into place. With that done, he took out his flashlight and stood.

"Good. Now, look to your left. At the end of the hall should be a door leading to the stairs. Open that, and head all the way down. There aren't any cameras in there, so you'll be blind. When you reach the basement, let me know."

"Okay. I'm switching the radio off for now," Timothy replied, depressing the red button on the side of the radio. _Probably against my better judgment, but oh well._

Holding the Colt out in his right hand, he tried to think of the best way to effectively form a combat stance. After running through all of the possible combinations in his mind, he settled for holding his left arm out at a forty-five degree angle to the right, underneath his pistol arm. With the flashlight in front of him, he cautiously creeped to the end of the hall which wasn't very far.

When he reached the door, he held the Colt using two fingers in the trigger guard, and opened it slowly. Resuming his previous stance, he quickly shuffled into the stairwell and closed the door behind him.

The staircase was just as ornate as the rest of Athena's Glory, but as Timothy waved his flashlight around, he almost vomitted upon discovering that the walls and floors were splashed with blood. Corpses--or remains of corpses--were scattered about random places on the stairs and nailed to walls.

_What in God's name did this?_ he thought.

Slowly, Timothy began to inch forward toward the stairs leading down, the flashlight still tucked in his palm beneath his pistol. He moved the beam back and forth against the walls and ceiling while feeling disgusted at the sights he saw.

As he was reaching the second floor's entrance, he swore he heard something that sounded like giggling behind him--a menacing, ominous giggle. He froze in his tracks, straining to listen. After a few seconds he heard it again, and as a chill ran through his spine, Timothy felt the air around him become cold.

Without warning, he spun on his heel and squeezed the trigger of the Colt, almost screaming in fear as he emptied four rounds at the wall. When he heard a distinct thud, he swung the beam of his flashlight over to the noise. On the floor was a grotesque, horrifically mutated body filled with four bullet holes; the blood from the wounds began to interwine with the existing blood on the stairwell. His sixth sense had been right.

He walked over and examined the corpse, nudging it with his foot a couple of times. When it didn't stir, Timothy quietly exhaled the breath he had been holding in. However, when he heard the sounds of shuffling coming from somewhere up above him, he pointed the flashlight up the shaft of the stairwell, and saw a few different shadows moving in ways that he knew weren't natural.

_Run_, his mind screamed. _Run!_

Timothy bolted down the stairs three steps at a time, almost spilling into the floor as he reached the bottom step that led to the basement. He put his hand on the knob and was frightened to learn that it was locked. He kept jiggling the knob, hoping it would open as the sounds of blood-curdling screams approached ever closer to his position. Finally, he backed away from the door, cocked his leg, and put all of his weight behind the kick as he aimed next to the door knob.

As he slammed his foot into the door, he could feel the shock of the impact travel up his leg into his groin, and for a few seconds Vanderbilt thought the door didn't budge. It did, however, and before him was another corridor with one emergency light on. He barreled through the open expanse, quickly looking around for something to close the door with.

Pointing his flashlight to his right, there on the wall was a container with breakable glass facing him, and inside of the container was a shiny red fire axe. Tim suddenly had a great, but dangerous, idea. Shooting the glass with his Colt, he set the flashlight down at the open door to give him illumination and he reached in through the glass for the axe.

Holding the axe in his left hand and the Colt in his right, Timothy knew that he only had two rounds remaining in the magazine and he had to be frugal with his shots. As the Shadow Splicers barreled down the staircase, the welder pointed his pistol at the darkness beyond.

As soon as the first Shadow Splicer appeared at the door, Tim squeezed the trigger, the loud bang of the Colt temporarily deafening in such close quarters, but he was surprised to discover that he had hit the splicer right in the face, and it fell on its back without another breath.

The next one came through and his aim wasn't so good this time. He squeezed the trigger again, and the last bullet left the chamber and smacked the splicer in the chest. It rocked back a few inches, but it was still standing. Two more splicers came through the doorframe, and Tim had no choice but to throw his Colt to the ground. Holding the fire axe with two hands, he waited as the first splicer leading the charge came at him. When the threshold was crossed, Timothy swung the axe like a baseball bat at the splicer's head, hearing the sick gushing of blood and the snapping of the neck as the head was crudely decapitated from the body.

Yet he hadn't recovered from the blow, and the next Shadow Splicer behind the now-headless one leapt through the air and clotheslined Timothy, throwing him back down the semi-lit corridor a foot or so. The axe went flying out of his hand and clattered somewhere in the shadows nearby.

The splicer who clawed him and the one he shot a bullet into approached slowly, and Tim kept backing away on his elbows and butt. He could see their faces as they passed in between the flood-lights--what looked like smiles were twisted and contorted with hatred and evil, further made more menacing by their grotesque appearances.

"This one looks ripe for the picking, Jerry," the one who had clawed him said. "It's okay, little boy. We won't hurt ya. We just want your ADAM."

"No, Paul, no, can't we have fun with him first?" Jerry added. "He fucking shot me. I want to teach him a lesson. We can cut his clothes off, hold him down--"

"Stay the fuck away from me, you ugly freaks!" Timothy cried. Then he remembered the Plasmid he had. He charged up his left hand, and curled his fingers up. Somewhere behind the two splicers, he could hear the axe sailing through the air in his direction. He could see its vague outline in the darkness, and it flew between the two splicers who were approaching him. With the axe now floating before him, Tim smiled slightly.

"Huh? How the--" Paul the splicer never finished his sentence because Timothy outstretched his fingers at him and the axe went flying into his chest, which in turn caused the splicer to fly back toward the staircase and into the wall chest-first, the beam of his flashlight illuminating his corpse.

Perplexed at his friend no longer standing next to him, Jerry looked back toward the staircase and just as quickly as Timothy had pulled the axe over to him, he had another idea. He curled his fingers again, and pulled the dead Shadow Splicer's dead body towards him, hurtling at extreme speed toward the last remaining splicer. It knocked the insane ADAM-fueled Rapturian off his feet and back across the opposite end of the corridor behind Tim.

Breathing heavily, Tim got to his feet and ran back toward the door to the staircase, closing it and locking it in place. Next, he picked up his flashlight and Colt off the floor, and then he walked back toward the middle of the hall. He flicked the radio on.

"I'm in the basement," he said in between breaths.

"You alright, laddy? You sound like you've been through the wringer," Bill replied, his voice showing concern.

Tim slammed his back into the wall, and slid down its length til he was sitting on the floor. "Shadow Splicers...four of them...staircase...drenched in blood."

"Take a deep breath, Timmy. It's over with. Now, whenever you're ready, the door to the generator room should be right there in front of you, as well as an elevator. There is a camera inside the generator room, so I'll be able to give you a heads-up on any threats."

"Okay. Just give me a minute to catch my breath."

Placing the flashlight on the ground so the beam faced the ceiling, Timothy held the Colt in its illuminating portal and reached for a magazine on his belt. With much effort due to his hands shaking from the adrenaline burning off, he inserted the fresh seven round magazine into the Colt, and pulled the slide back.

He stood, and resumed the same stance he had used before. "Please, God, let me survive this," he whispered to himself as he approached the door to the generator room.


	7. Chapter 6

_Freefall_

_Chapter 6_

Timothy approached the door to the generator room; his nerves were shot and he was on edge. Beyond the doorway was the possibility of his own death, which he could not allow for the sake of Jenny. If the rest of Rapture was like this--horribly and irreversibly transformed into monsters because of ADAM--he had almost no hope that she could still be alive.

_Don't think like that,_ he thought, shaking his head. _Be optimistic. She may still be out there, hiding in a vent or something._

Tim smiled. He knew how stubborn Jenny could be, which served to spark his brotherly instincts.

"I'm right outside," Vanderbilt whispered. "Am I clear?"

For several seconds there was silence, which only served to make Tim nervous. "Bill, you there?"

"Oye, yes, sorry, sorry, " he replied. "I heard voices outside my apartment--had to go dark. You're clear as far as I can tell, but watch the ceiling. Those splicers enjoy ambushing. Restoring the main power will light this whole place up like Broadway, and send those nasties packing. They won't bother you after that."

"Good to know." Timothy paused with his hand on the door knob, his earlier thoughts gnawing at his conscience. "Bill, is the rest of Rapture like...this?"

"Afraid so, Timmy. There may be power, but the civil war really tore this place apart. ADAM did a number on us--it can never see the surface."

Tim nodded even though Bill couldn't see him. He agreed--if ADAM turned people insane like all of the former citizens he had encounterd thus far, the repercussions on the surface would be tremendous.

"I'm going in," he said, twisting the knob and crossing the threshold into the generator room. He closed the door behind him, and found himself facing a beige-green panel. Throughout the seemingly cavernous room were individual lights hanging from the ceiling at strategic points.

"This room is like a maze, Timmy. Easy to get confused if you don't know your way. I will guide you. Do you see a wall in front of you?"

"Yes."

"Okay. From the door, go left, then right. Follow the panels and keep heading toward the center of the room. When you get there, let me know."

Timothy followed McDonagh's instructions, all the while feeling like a mouse in a maze without cheese, in addition to a bulls-eye on his entire body. He had switched the flashlight off to use the panels as well as the lights as a guide. The entire time, he heard some kind of low humming that kept getting more distinct the further he headed for the center.

Finally, he reached an odd-looking device that turned out to be the source of the humming, bleeping and pulsing with colorful lights in a discordant manner. He assumed it to be the main generator, though the fact that it wasn't grinding obnoxiously loud mystified him.

"Bill, I think I found the generator," Vanderbilt said quietly, holstering his pistol and pulling out the flashlight. The beam revealed it to be a cylindrical shape and made of a strange metal that he was unfamiliar with, and it was easily the tallest device in the room. Placing his hand on it, he was surprised to discover that it was cold to the touch rather than warm or hot.

"Is it humming?" Bill asked anxiously.

"Yes, but why? Shouldn't it be louder?"

"That's the way it was designed, lad, to power down when the main power gets cut. Now, do you see two blue bars flashing in unison?"

"Yes," Tim replied, noticing how they were on the left side of the generator, away from all of the brilliant colors that were blinking on the generator's surface.

"Okay, good. Touch those bars."

The welder did so, and the blue bars rushed off in opposite directions across the surface before meeting in the center of the machine. Following soon after were the other colors he had seen, which were now blinking and spinning around the blue bars in a rough circle.

_Such a strange piece of machinery,_ Tim thought as he rubbed his chin. He'd never seen anything like it before, and he had a pretty good knowledge of how Rapture's innards worked, so what he was looking at must've been an exclusive device for Athena's Glory.

"These colored bars are moving around the blue bars," he stated. "Are they supposed to do that?"

"Indeed they are," Bill replied. He coughed a few times, then said, "You see, right now, the bloody connection is scrambled, and the proper sequence needs to be inputted. The order is green, orange, green, blue, red, red, green, orange. I know this because I had to reset the generators one time when the connection was accidentally severed.

"Thing of it is, you gotta put it in fast because if you're too slow, Security Bots will attack you. If you miss a bar, you have to start over. I know, you're probably thinking that's the stupidest failsafe, but the guy who made this thing convinced Ryan it would cut down on the amount of energy being put out that could be used for other things. He was a bit of a nut, always thinking people were tampering with his devices. No pressure, though!"

_Gee thanks, Bill_, Tim thought with annoyance. _As if I don't have enough to begin with._

Taking a deep breath, Timothy placed the flashlight in his pocket, seeing as though there wasn't a need for it due to the bright lights pulsing on the generator. He hovered his fingers over the rough circle, his eyes darting about in search of the color green. When he finally saw one bar appear, he stabbed his thumb at it, and watched as it flew to the center of the circle below the double blue bars. Keeping in mind that he had to work fast, he looked for orange.

However, halfway through the input sequence, klaxons began to blare, and the white lights turned red and began to flash repeatedly. "Fuck! What's happening?"

"You took too long, Timmy!" Bill yelled. "Security Bots are coming!"

Panicking, Tim pulled out the Colt and aimed it at high at the ceiling. "What do I do, what do I do!"

"I'm sending a few friendly Bots your way, but you'll have--"

Bill was cut off in mid-sentence as the whirling of the Security Bots became audible, with rapid machine gun fire angrily slicing the air around Tim. He ducked around behind the generator just in time.

"You can try to deactivate the alarm by putting the rest of the sequence in to cancel the failsafe, but you'll be vulnerable in the meantime," McDonagh exclaimed.

Somewhere on the other side of the room, Vanderbilt heard more whirling sounds, cringing and cursing mentally until Bill said, "Ah, go lad! Do it now! The green-light Bots will distract the other ones."

Timothy watched as the silhouettes of Bill's Security Bots buzzed over his head and the generator, their headlights flashing green as they unleashed hell with their own machine guns. The welder slid back around the corner to the light panel, and noticed something odd.

With the adrenaline coursing through him, Tim felt as though the last four colors in the sequences were easier to discern, almost like they were moving slower. He jumped and ducked his head down when bullets pinged off the generator to his left.

_Red, red, green, yellow,_ he repeated. Hitting the yellow bar immediately brought the klaxons and flashing lights to a halt, and the hostile Security Bots retreated back to their terminal somewhere in the ceiling.

The colored circle of lights seemed to explode into tiny pieces, dispersing in all directions. The sequence he put in slowly danced about the panel's surface with the dual blue bars moving in between the code. One by one, in order, the colors took turns entering the blue bars. Feeling like it was natural, Tim pushed the blue bars and they began flashing.

"Attention! Main power restored!" a mechanical voice announced over the PA, nearly causing Timothy to jump out of his skin at the sudden loud announcement. "Please stand by. Andrew Ryan apologizes to the tenets of Athena's Glory for the inconvenience."

The emergency lights in the generator room snapped off in unison, plunging the whole area into darkness for a few seconds. To Vanderbilt, however, it felt like an eternity. Then, in one of the far corners, a single panel light flashed on.

"Well done, lad!" Bill said, his voice laced with excitement. "The power's coming..."

One by one, more panel lights began to come to life and the whole room gradually became brighter. Timothy pumped his fist in celebration, but he wondered why Bill had stopped talking.

"Everything okay, old man?" he asked with subtle humor.

In room 313, Bill's gaze was locked on the monitor that contained the camera feed to the generator room. Now that power was restored, he could see the room alot more clearly than before, but what he saw now wasn't good. As Timothy stood next to the generator looking around, a sizable amount of Splicers--some with guns, some with tools--were quickly and silently closing in on Tim's position.

He was surrounded.


	8. Chapter 7

_Freefall_

_Chapter 7_

"Oi, lad, look around you, and tell me if you see a Pneumo tube," Bill said with a tinge of concern. "There should be one from what I remember."

Timothy looked around the small area that contained the generator, spied the cylindrical device in a corner, and walked over to it. "Yes, I see it, but why--"

"Good. I've sent you a present through. Take it out and use it wisely." Bill seemed very keen on making sure Timothy retrieved the gift, for reasons he didn't understand.

When he opened the lid, he was mildly taken aback by the sight of a shotgun and a box of shells staring back at him. Hesitantly, Vanderbilt reached inside and pulled out the shells followed by the shotgun itself. He flipped open the lid on the box, and discovered six shotgun shells within. Leaning against one of the panels, Tim reached for a shell with his left hand while holding the shotgun in his right, studying the device.

From his inspection, there seemed to be a feed for the shotgun on the left side of the weapon, and so he put the first shell in. "Why do I need this shotgun?"

"For the sake of Christ, you setting off that alarm attracted about six or so Splicers. They're coming your way, lad."

Fear once again crept into Tim's spine as he loaded the other shells into the shotgun, and pulled on the pump as quietly as he could. He strained to listen for any sign of the Splicers' approach and soon he could hear footsteps on the outer perimeter of the room.

"Come out, come out wherever you are, monster!" one of the Splicers--a female from the sound of it--remarked, her voice faint.

Timothy had to find a way out--six versus one weren't excellent odds. Looking around the small area he found himself in, he looked at the Pneumo tube, then the panel it rested against. Without further thought, he anchored himself and hopped onto the tube, soon after hoisting himself on top of the panel. With the shotgun in both hands, he studied the other panels and noticed that if he followed the trail they created, he'd be back at the entrance.

From his new position, he noted that the Splicers were rapidly heading to his last location, so without a further thought, Timothy began crouch-walking atop the panels away from the crazed, former denizens of Rapture that seeked to end his life.

When he reached the entrance of the generator room, Timothy jumped down to the floor and grunted from the mild impact in his legs. Holding the shotgun in front of him, he was about to pass through the door when another of the horribly mutated citizens unwittingly greeted him. For a split-second only, Tim and the Splicer locked eyes, confused.

"Fuck!" Timothy uttered thoughtlessly; his pull of the trigger was equally spastic from having been greeted so unexpectedly. The shotgun bucked in his hands, and the shot blasted the Splicer back into the wall behind it, a thick trail of blood sailing in its wake. The stomach had been ripped to shreds--a clear sign that he wouldn't be getting back up.

"He's back at the entrance!" the same female voice from before yelled. "Kill the monster! Don't let him escape!"

Timothy pumped his legs as fast as they could go, rounding the corner and punching the button for the elevator. It opened instantly, and soon after he entered the elevator car, he hit the '4' button and the doors closed. He let out a breath, relieved to have escaped.

Slowly, the elevator began its ascent to the fourth floor. He racked the pump on the shotgun to eject the spent shell, almost forgetting that he couldn't fire again without doing so first. Tim was surprised he even remembered how to fire and load a shotgun--he had only seen it once in real life, but countless times in movies before.

_Any knowledge was good knowledge_, he thought.

The fourth floor arrived quickly, and Timothy briskly entered the corridor with his shotgun at the ready, sweeping low in a half-crouch as he scanned up and down the hall for targets. With only five shells loaded in the shotgun, and two spare magazines for the Colt, he needed to be frugal with his shots. All the more reason why he was keeping track of the amount of bullets spent.

"Hall's clear," Vanderbilt announced. He lowered the shotgun, but kept his finger near the trigger guard. On one level, it scared him how quickly he was adapting to the rapidly changing environment around him--a place he had called home for the past four years. However, Tim wasn't a stranger to change, and easily adapted to it when it came. The only difference now was that the stakes were higher than ever.

"Okay," Bill replied. "You're going to go left down the hall, and it's the only door on the entire left side of the wall. The door to the nerve center should still be open from my last visit there."

Wordlessly, Tim raised the shotgun to shoulder height, and gingerly proceeded left from the elevator. Eventually, he reached an indent in the wall--indication of a door frame. Remembering there was a machine gun turret, he pressed his back against the wall and inched to the edge of the door just enough to see into the nerve center.

His limited view allowed him to see the faint outline of the turret, topped with a red light. Tim quickly whipped his head back around the corner, cursing to himself. He took note of a security camera trained at the door, then didn't give it anymore mind.

"Bloody shame you don't have Electrobolt," McDonagh quipped. "You could shock the bejesus out of that turret and temporarily disable it."

Tim sighed. The whole idea of splicing up made his skin crawl, and Bill must've sensed it, but still talked about it like it was matter of fact. "I guess so."

Looking around the corridor, he wondered how he was going to overcome this obstacle.

_You have a Colt, some type of shotgun, and Telekinesis,_ Tim thought as he mentally ran through his options. _What to do, what to do..._

While he was deep within his thoughts, the entire time he was staring at a trashcan perpendicular to him, against the opposite wall...on the other side of the open door. Then it hit him. He could use the trashcan as a shield to move into the nerve center. The only question was whether or not the trashcan would hold.

_I guess I'll find out._

Leaning the shotgun against the wall, Timothy aimed his fingers at the trashcan, then quickly curled them as the trashcan slid toward him at a frightening speed before stopping to hover in front of him. He crouch-walked away from the wall, now diagonal to the door. He could feel his heart pounding faster in his chest, and he mentally commanded himself to take deep breaths.

"Oh, Christ, I can't watch this," Bill stated, his voice dripping with fear.

_Thanks for the vote of confidence, old man,_ Tim thought bitterly before resigning himself that he could not escape the inevitable.

"Here goes nothing." With the trashcan arrayed before him, Tim stepped in front of the open door.

Almost immediately the turret opened fire upon his makeshift shield, his face cringing the whole time as he advanced into the nerve center. A few times he felt the hot air of the bullets' trajectory fly by his legs.

_Dear God, I hope this son of a bitch holds!_

Finally, Timothy was parallel to the turret and out of its line of sight. He uncurled his fingers and the trashcan clattered to the floor.

"I'm in," Tim exclaimed.

"Well done, Timmy! Now, flick the switch on the side of that blasted thing off."

The welder did so, and the red light on top of the turret blinked from existence. He wanted to collapse, but thoughts of Jenny stirred him.

_She's out there,_ Vanderbilt thought with confidence as he snatched up the shotgun out in the hall. He closed and locked the door behind him. _I know she is._

On the left side of the nerve center was a wide range of panels and screen that very much resembled Bill's setup on a smaller scale. In the middle of one of the panels was a square protrusion with a slot. Next to it was a small red button about the size of Tim's thumb. In a corner near the entrance was a Pneumo tube.

"Okay, now that you're in the nerve center, do you see a box with a slot of sorts?"

"Yes, I do."

"Good. That is where a genetic key code is printed, but first you need a sample of Ryan's DNA."

Tim stared intensely at the red button, trying to recall something Bill said about Ryan's quarters. "Let's see what this does," he muttered, pressing it.

"Wait, what? What does what do?" Bill didn't like being out of the loop.

"Quiet!" Timothy snarled as he heard faint popping and clicking around the side of the panel...like it was around a corner. Curious, he poked his head around the edge of one of the screens and was amazed to find the entrance to an ornate room.

Vanderbilt laughed. "Well, I'll be...I found Ryan's quarters, Bill."

Bill must've been in shock because for several seconds, there was no response over the radio. When Timothy asked if he was there, he spat out his response: "Bloody hell, I always knew he lived here!"

Tim waltzed into the chambers of Andrew Ryan's home, feeling an intense desire to destroy everything he saw that belonged to the man. It was a perfect desire in a sense, for Ryan had robbed him of a normal life on the surface. What better way to repay the man than to take everything he held dear?

"See if you can find something with Ryan's DNA on it. Like, er, a bar of soap, for example," Bill said.

Off to Tim's right, sitting in a large pool of water that stretched from one side of the room to the other, was a bathysphere--a most unexpected sight. However, unlike the rest he had seen and ridden in, this one was made of, or appeared to be, gold.

"There's a bathysphere in here," Vanderbilt said under his breath. "His personal chariot."

On impulse, he walked to Ryan's lavish bed and flopped down back first on it, wallowing in its comfort. The shotgun lay next to him on a pillow. "His bed is certainly comfortable."

Bill laughed. "Probably exquisite in its furnishings, too!"

Soon, though, Timothy began to smell a pungent odor from Ryan's living quarters. It was close, and smelled as though somebody had died. Suddenly on edge, Tim snapped upright with the Colt in his right hand.

"Hold on, I'm going dark real quick." Timothy flipped the radio off and backed away from the bed, then slowly approached it. He felt like the smell was coming from under the bed.

Aiming the Colt, he crouched and slowly pulled back the mattress curtain. Staring back at him was a horribly decayed face, eyes wide and mouth forever open in shock.

"Oh God!" he whispered harshly, crawling backwards on his butt away from the bed. Among the list of names he had for Ryan, he could now add killer. But why?

The facial features were distinctly feminine, which was backed up by the torn skimpy skirt she wore. Recovering from the shock of finding a dead body under Andrew Ryan's bed, Timothy crawled back toward the bed to better examine the corpse.

Had he not been paying attention, he would've missed the Audio-Vox recorder resting at the dead woman's feet. Now extremely curious, the welder reached for the device--which was slightly bigger than his radio--and sat at the foot of the bed. He pressed the "Play" button, and waited as the tape started to rewind.

The voice of the dead woman began to speak in a slight Hispanic accent; it almost psyched him out knowing she was no longer living, but with the clarity of the Audio-Vox machines, she might as well have been still alive.

_"Erica Vasquez here, reporting in. Right now, Ryan is washing up. The man's a pig, but I do as asked. I know I am not to compromise myself, but I have to make note of this. Ryan has a personal bathysphere that could be used for the extraction and ransom. We were to take the little one to the surface, but complications arose. We last had her at Ryan Stadium--"_

The voice of Andrew Ryan himself interrupted suddenly. _"Erica, honey, who are you talking to? What's that in your hand--?"_

The recording ended after that. Timothy sat on the bed in complete shock, trying to process what he had just heard. He played the recording a second time, his mind now racing off in various directions. He bent over and looked at the corpse again. It looked like she'd been dead for at least a month, but he couldn't be sure.

_The little one has to be Jenny. Has to be. Erica must've been a spy from the cryptic words she used, but for whom. Last had her at Ryan Stadium..._

So many thoughts were running through Tim's mind. He flipped the radio back on, and began to relay everything to Bill.

"Son of a bloody bitch," he cursed in response. "A spy, you think?"

"Afraid so from the looks of it," Vanderbilt replied.

"Damn it. If there was one spy, most likely there are more. It means nothing now, though. Just create two genetic key cards, send one through the Pneumo in the nerve center, and...I guess we'll go our own ways after that."

Over the next ten minutes, using a bar of soap from Ryan's bathroom, McDonagh walked Tim through the process of creating a genetic key code, and when he finally sent one of the two through the Pneumo to Bill's apartment, he had to face the reality that from here on out he was on his own with no cameras to watch his back.

"However, if there's something you've never seen or don't understand, give me a buzz," Bill had said cheerfully. "A lot has happened in the past six months. Rapture ain't what she used to be, lad. Remember that. I may not respond depending on if my radio is on or off, but who knows? You may get lucky."

Before he made his way to the bathysphere, Timothy changed out of his clothes that were now starting to feel a little tight, and replaced the clothes with some of Ryan's. Timothy grinned at the thought of how Ryan would react seeing a common welder wearing his clothes. He shook his head and re-tied his dress shoes.

With his own key card in hand, Tim unlocked the porthole to Ryan's bathysphere, and stepped inside. He twisted the valve until his destination read "Ryan Stadium." The porthole clanged shut, and the bathysphere began its descent down the middle of Athena's Glory.

_Ryan Stadium. Sports galore,_ he thought. _One step closer to finding Jenny. It's just a matter of following the trail of crumbs._


	9. Chapter 8

_Freefall_

_Chapter 8_

After the golden bathysphere was spat from the bottom of Athena's Glory, it began its journey toward Ryan Stadium. Timothy looked over his reflection in the porthole, and for once felt like a million bucks.

_You dapper dog you,_ he thought jokingly. _You wear Ryan's clothing better than he ever could._

Tim wondered if Rapture's founder was still alive. He doubted it, but after seeing so many odd things, he wasn't jumping to any conclusions considering the man wouldn't let his city fall.

_Bill doesn't really think he'll succeed, does he? He's insane if he thinks he can kill Ryan._

Tim bowed his head, and prayed for Bill's safety. Faith had been a huge part of his life on the surface, and even in a godless society, he never lost step. He had his doubts, and at times found it silly, but he felt believing in something was better than nothing. He never dared prayed in public for fear of execution, but with society collapsing around him, his convictions had rooted deeper within himself.

The bathysphere sailed over and under the metal carcasses of the Atlantic Express tracks, the ocean slowly reclaiming the man-made rails. Before long, Tim spotted an immense, domed structure with bright lights in the distance. The bathysphere's speed increased noticeably.

_That has to be it,_ Vanderbilt deduced. He assumed it was the center of the city, but he wasn't completely sure. He could identify the docking sections for ot her bathyspheres spaced all around the stadium, whereas Ryan's special chariot was heading somewhere else.

Eventually, it reached it's own docking station, giving Timothy the cue to stand. Checking his tool belt and weapons one more time, he took a deep breath as the bathysphere began to rise.

*******

From his view, Timothy appeared to be in some sort of emergency access hallway despite the overabundance of advertisements for sports-related events and something called Gene Tonics plastered on the walls. He raised his shotgun and began to walk down the hallway.

At the end, the hall split in two directions, but on the wall before Tim was a strange machine of odd design. It looked like a clamp extended out of the left side, and neon sign hung off below with the word "Open" flashing periodically. A German Luger on each side gave the machine a unique, if violent, style to it.

"Power to the People?" Tim asked the air as he read off the name hanging between the two Lugers.

A quick radio broadcast to Bill--who thankfully had his radio on--answered his question: "Ah, that damned Fontaine installed those machines around Rapture. 'A gun in every home' was the touted catchphrase. It can also upgrade your weapons, so to speak."

It sounded silly and too good to be true to Tim, but he remembered where he was and decided not to question it. He removed the Colt from its holster and placed it in the machine. Two options appeared on a small screen above the "Open" sign, with two black buttons next to each; one was 'Accuracy' and the other was 'Damage.'

Timothy groaned. Making decisions wasn't one of his strong points, so he closed his eyes and blindly stabbed his finger at one of the buttons. When he opened his eyes, he discovered that he had pressed the Accuracy button.

The machine began to gurgle and spew steam out of the barrels of the Lugers while the clamp spun rapidly. Vanderbilt cocked his left eyebrow, utterly mystified at the whole ordeal. When the machine ceased its gurgling, the Colt rose out of its chamber on a pedestal. The sign now read "Closed" rather than "Open."

"Only one upgrade? Well, that's shit..." Tim muttered as he retrieved the Colt.

Grafted onto the end of the pistol was a thick, black cylinder with two metal tubes connected to the gun itself. It reminded him of a suppressor.

"What the hell's all that racket I hear?" a gravelly voice bellowed down one side of the hall--Tim's right.

He looked up in time to see a man that may have been a doctor at one point, his bloody surgeon's mask and torn white scrubs serving as evidence of his former life. The Splicer was a good distance away from Tim's position.

_First test,_ he thought, raising the Colt and pulling the trigger.

One shot was all it took. A thick spray of crimson shot out of the Splicer's neck, and he spun like a top to the floor while hopelessly trying to cluch his gaping neck wound.

Two things became clear--the Colt was now a lot more accurate because all he did was point the gun hastily, and the cylinder was in fact a suppressor. Timothy still hadn't gotten use to the loud report of the Colt, so when he barely heard the shot, he was surprised. He looked at the pistol sideways in his hand and smiled.

Looking at the shotgun on the floor, Tim grabbed it and began sprinting back to where Ryan's bathysphere was docked. At the first glimpse of water, he chucked the shotgun. It splashed loudly, and he watched as it slowly began to sink beneath the surface.

He now had one hell of a weapon at his disposal, and he intended to make every shot count with it.


	10. Chapter 9

_Freefall_

_Chapter 9_

After checking the other hallway and finding it led to a dead end filled with various pipes, Timothy ventured down the side that the Splicer had come from and found it led to a single ladder leading up that ended at a ledge. Sighing, he holstered the Colt--which amazingly enough still fit securely--and began to climb.

Halfway up, he smirked at the thought of Bill putting a bullet through Ryan's brain. Bill seemed like a tough guy who could handle himself.

Only the faint sounds of cheering interrupted his thoughts. At that sudden realization, Tim stopped, straining to listen. He wasn't going nuts--there was definitely cheering and shouting coming from somewhere up above. He continued to climb.

_There can't really be games going on,_ Vanderbilt thought in disbelief. Then again, he was still getting used to the reality that his entire world had been flipped on its head, and anything was possible.

He reached the top of the ladder and the cheering was now louder but still muffled. All that lay before him was a metal door outlined in yellow stripes. It sounded like the...crowd was chanting a name, but Tim wouldn't know unless he stepped through the door.

He pulled out the Colt and pressed himself against the door. He hadn't even considered the possibility of dying, if there were this many Splicers outside in the stadium. That thought made him even more hesitant in regard to opening the door. He reasoned that if he didn't make the effort to get closer to finding Jenny, he would die trying.

Feeling fearless (for the moment), Tim nodded to himself, pushed hard against the door, and aimed forward as bright lights engulfed his vision.

When his eyes adjusted, Timothy thought he was back home in one of Kentucky's stadiums and in that moment, he felt at home. The feeling was short-lived, though.

The sight of so many people petrified him to no end. Granted, the stadium wasn't filled, but there were at least thirty Splicers on his side of the stadium. He looked around the massive structured, styled in the likeness of a coliseum, and noted the absence of other Splicers.

"He could go all the way, folks!" a voice yelled over the loudspeaker, the echo carrying across the whole stadium.

Slowly, Timothy became aware of what the crowd was chanting. It sounded like they were saying "daddy." He then noticed some sort of vest strapped around the chest of each Splicer. He strained to get a better view of what the event was, but the pack was blocking his view. Feeling strangely safe, and also curious, he began to walk through the middle of the Splicer formation toward the edge.

The chanting started to die out as the Splicers took notice of him, and in turn the hairs on his back, arms, and legs stood at attention. Tim glanced over his shoulder and to his horror saw that the vests were actually full of TNT explosives.

_This is either an elaborate trap, or they're here against their will,_ Vanderbilt thought uneasily.

"What's going on?" the same voice from earlier asked. "Why did the crowd stop cheering?"

A spotlight snapped on from behind and washed Timothy in its glow, and he turned to look. He shielded his eyes with his hand in response.

"Well, well, look what we have here, folks!" The voice was now transmitting out of his radio in addition to the loudspeaker, producing the awkward feeling of having a voice in his head. In addition, the person speaking seemed to ooze arrogance, a fact that pissed Tim off to no end. "Hello there, rookie."

"Who are you?" Timothy asked, wondering where the mystery person was.

The voice stopped using the loudspeaker and instead communicated via radio. "You must be fucking kidding, right? How can you _not_ know who I am?"

Timothy smiled. "I never was a fan of egotistical jerk-offs who run the spirit of a sports game and love to take all of the credit. Never really wanted to know their names."

Instead of the angry response Tim had been expecting, he instead received a hearty laugh. "Oh man, you're funny, kid. Funny, funny, funny. My name is Danny Wilkins, and I'm the best damned player that Ryan's Raiders have ever seen."

"Is that so?" Timothy asked disbelievingly. "I have to say, there isn't much of a team anymore. At least that's the impression I'm getting."

Wilkins sighed in frustration. "You're right. But Wilkins here improvised, and came up with a new game for the people of Rapture to love! Come over to the edge, rookie, and see what I mean."

Timothy walked towards the stone guard rail and looked down into the field. The astroturf was torn up in various places, and the goal posts normally reserved for football games were crudely severed in half. Instead, it appeared that bodies were used as goals. One side, on the far side of the field, had one body dressed in red, and the other side closest to Tim had a large pile of bodies dressed in blue jerseys.

_Atlas Astros and Ryan's Raiders,_ Vanderbilt thought as he stared down the field. In the middle stood a lone figure on one knee, and at the other end was some sort of odd humanoid figure that appeared to wear a diving suit with various portholes. At the end of one of its arms was a huge drill.

_What in the _fuck_ is that thing!_ his mind screamed.

He watched as the portholes on the diving suit figure turned red, and it wailed loudly in a similiar fashion to a whale. It stomped the ground with its massive boot, and revved its drill. The person in the middle fired its weapon at it, but with seemingly little effect. As one, the crowd began to chant.

"Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!" they yelled, pumping their fists and whistling.

Tim watched in horror as Daddy rushed forward toward the person in the center, its drill running at full speed, and gored the person with the drill. A bone-chilling scream filled the stadium as the body sailed back toward the Ryan's Raiders goal, the blood smearing the astro turf.

"Oh, it's just too bad, folks!" Danny boomed over the loudspeaker. "Once again, Big Daddy is the winner!"

The crowd of Splicers whooped and hollered as confetti shot out of four pillars positioned around the field and onto the Big Daddy.

"What the hell is wrong with you!" Timothy screamed through the radio.

"Chill out, rookie, it's all in the spirit of the game. That rookie...well, ex-rookie now...didn't have the skill needed to take down a Big Daddy."

"You'll have to forgive me for being ignorant, but I haven't a clue what a Big Daddy is."

"Wow, you really are stupid, meat. Big Daddies protect the Little Sisters, who go around Rapture and gather up ADAM from dead bodies so the ADAM can be recycled again. Big Daddies are tough, so Wilkins here thought, 'Hm, what if I lured one inside the field and trapped it in.' And boom! We got ourselves a game here!"

_Little Sister?_ Vanderbilt thought alarmingly. Come to think of it, he had seen a tiny figure down by the Atlas Astros goal by the dead body. He now understood. Then a second thought entered his mind: _Oh my God! That girl...wait. Gathering ADAM from dead bodies? But...that..._

"Listen, I don't care about your game," Timothy said suddenly, canceling his previous thought. "I need to find my sister, Jenny. Do you know anything about someone named Erica Vasquez?"

Danny chuckled over the radio. "Of course. One of the best fucks in Rapture. She gave Wilkins some sort of audio tape about a month ago. Wilkins didn't understand any of it, but he held on to it. Maybe it'll be of use to you..."

Tim's heart started racing. "I won't harm you or your fans or impede the game. Just let me have the tape, and I'll be on my way."

"I'm afraid that can't happen, rookie. As you just saw, one of the players took early retirement. If you want to get that tape, you'll have to play the game."

The welder's eyes narrowed in fear. He had seen the destructive power of what that...thing had done. He didn't stand a chance in hell of killing it.

_Yes, you do,_ Tim thought. _This is just one more obstacle to overcome._

With fear obviously in his voice, he said, "Fine. I'll play your game. But don't whine like a bitch when I win."

Danny Wilkins whistled. "Oh, the rookie thinks he'll win at my game. This will be the best game Rapture has ever seen."

The ex-football player switched back to the intercom. "It looks like we have a new challenger, folks! Come on downstairs, rookie! Walk around behind the Raiders goal, and follow the signs! Get suited up, come back up, and step onto the field!"

The Splicer crowd stared at the field, then to Tim, and repeated this. Then they started to cheer and holler at the prospect of a new game.

Tim's body shook all over as he walked toward the back end of the Raiders goal, following crudely-made signs that read "Pre-Game Room." He needed to know more about the Big Daddy, and he knew that Bill McDonagh would have something to say, but when he tried to reach him on the radio, he got no response. Vanderbilt gulped, and cursed to himself at his luck as he reached the Pre-Game Room and stepped inside.


End file.
